Comments

  • POLL: Is morality - objective, subjective or relative?
    I think it would probably help to assess biology and related terms like ‘law’ and ‘ethics’.

    The underlying principle is our biological make up. For that reason it seems an error to assume subjective begets subjective and objective begets objective. Your question is more epistemic than ethic as it deals with abstract ideals in the form of ‘objectivity’ & ‘subjectivity’.
  • Survey of philosophers
    My skull is my Vat. The ‘computer’ is a rather primitive organic sensory system with limited capacity.
  • What is Philosophy?
    And when it came to letters, Theuth said, “this invention, oh king, will make the Egyptians wiser and improve their memory. For I have discovered a stimulant (pharmakon) of both memory and wisdom.” But Thamus replied, “oh most crafty Theuth, one man has the lot of being able to give birth to technologies (ta tekhnēs), but another to assess both the harm and benefit to those who would make use of them. Even you, at present, being the father of letters, through good intentions spoke the opposite of its potential. For this, by the neglect of memory, will produce forgetfulness (lēthēn) in the souls of those who learn it, since through their faith in writing they recollect things externally by means of another’s etchings, and not internally from within themselves. You invented a stimulant not of memory, but of reminder, and you are procuring for its students the reputation (doxan) of wisdom (sophias), not the truth (alētheian) of it. For having heard much, but without learning anything, they will seem to you to be knowledgeable of many things, but for the most part really ignorant, and difficult to associate with, having become wise-seeming (doxosophoi) instead of wise (sophōn).”
  • POLL: Is morality - objective, subjective or relative?
    It depends on the context and what exactly you mean by ‘morality’.

    Generally speaking I’m inclined to answer ‘Yes’ to all three. A more specific question might help more, or maybe this is exactly the kind of response you wanted?
  • How do you think we should approach living with mentally lazy/weak people?
    How would you know if you’re too lazy to read/weak to put in the effort and read books? How would those who only read and interpret written works know if they’re too lazy/weak to think first before studying?

    At least scholars of philosophy offer up better mediums through which true thinkers can access and assess what groundwork others have laid down over millennia.

    Note: Personally I think getting deep into philosophical study is likely to form early bias for youthful students (ie. practically anyone under 30) because most people that young are hardly likely to know anything much due to lack of experience. The boon of youth is naivety. Raw curiosity and intrigue are better earlier on than filling your head with the thoughts of others and calling them your own.
  • Changing Sex
    CRISPR - Wait a few decades and it will be perfectly possible to switch back and forth easily enough AND produce eggs/sperm.

    Either way if woman becomes a man they are still a woman who has become a man. Actions cannot erase the history/experience.

    @TheMadFool I’m not inclined to agree that there are different ‘kinds of sex’ as you said above. Neither am I inclined to use other derivatives of terms that are generally created to by someone to make a name for themselves in a certain field of interest. They should either create a completely new term or think carefully about how using the same term in a different manner could muddy the waters and accomplish little more than academic confusion and/or create misunderstanding in the public sphere at large.

    That said, there are grey areas and that’s fine. As mentioned above it is more than possible in the not too distant future that people will be able to fully change from one sex to another, and I’m sure some will abscond and turn to surgery instead for various personal reasons.

    Defining oneself by any one particular aspect of out being seems a little obsessive to me. Sadly society forces some to have to react against the ‘norm’.
  • The Twilight Of Reason
    @TheMadFool fairly recently watched Stephen Fry talk to Jordan Peterson about something like this. Fry’s point being that ‘Reason’ can often make one refuse to take the path towards the solution to a problem. What seems like the most irrational approach to a problem will often be ignored even if the results bear fruit.
  • Perception vs. Reason
    @Enrique I was referring to your OP. You don’t seemed to be saying anything concrete.

    What seems apparent to me, if this is a reflection of posters on this forum, is that many posters on this forum are stringing together words that don’t really say anything of philosophical substance.

    Can you reiterate the OP in plain English and/or expand on the terminology used and its context to the heading of ‘Perception vs Reason’ because I’m not convinced you’re using these terms - and others - in any context I’m familiar with.

    Thank you
  • Perception vs. Reason
    Gobbledegook

    Can you rephrase?
  • Debate Discussion: The Logic of Atheism
    A actual link might help?
  • Are we “free” in a society?
    Freedom requires Responsibility.

    Many people want Freedom without the Responsibility it bring. They are immature/naive/inexperienced. Coming to terms with this is a vital step in developing as a human being.
  • The Box - a short ‘essay’/ramble (bombastic style)
    To add, the ‘word’ is like this. ‘Reality’ is the ultimate box I guess. What it means/is to individuals collectively is to search or to resist searching.
  • The Box - a short ‘essay’/ramble (bombastic style)
    @Jack Cummins My overarching approach here was to view the ‘box’ as an horizon into the unknown and that we get distracted by what is ‘beyond’ when the most intriguing thing is actually the conduit of our intention - we should be fascinated by the box rather than the contents because it reveals mysteries, mysteries that quickly become mundate.
  • Essay Number One: ‘Perceptions of Experience and Experiences of Perception’
    @fishfry The smartypants types know quite a bit about how the brain functions and their knowledge can do anyway false assumptions that our rational mind makes.

    I find language to be an intriguing concept. I wasn’t really trying to focus on stream of consciousness, but I guess it does tie into inhibition of return (IOR) which is a common feature of neuro-cognitive function.
  • Essay Number One: ‘Perceptions of Experience and Experiences of Perception’
    Not sure what you’re getting at with Heidegger comment or the need for an exclamation mark?

    I think you missed the point there. I was saying the word ‘hammer’ isn’t physical but we treat it as being physical (as you just did above).
  • How do we perceive time?
    clearly you don’t ... do some reading.
  • How do we perceive time?
    We don’t ‘write’ with pens and we don’t ‘see’ with our eyes. Sensory receptors don’t ‘think’. We ‘see’ with our occipital lobes.
  • How do we perceive time?
    Well ... not really philosophy then is it? If you’re talking about the cognitive neurosciences you actually have to lap over into psychology.
  • How do we perceive time?
    Without change time cannot be perceived. Entropy is the base to start from if you’re looking at this in terms of physics.

    In terms of consciousness our perception of time today (for most of us) is quiet different than several thousand years ago. Today we walk around with beeps, rings and buzzes to enforce the idea of ‘home time,’ ‘lunch break’ or ‘Sunday service’. These cultural traditions imposed on us alter our perception of change.

    We ‘perceive time’ today through our traditionally imposed lens (including clocks, timetables and more long running traditions). We have always ‘marked out’ changes in our personal journey as well as out communal journey ... in todays world we’ve carried over certain tokens of this nature and mechanised it.

    Our cosmological perspective (our grasping at infinity) is probably a large reason why we’re obsessed with measuring and partitioning time just as it has more recently become a tradition we impose upon the physical Earth with concepts of ‘borders’ and ‘boundaries’ taking a physical significance where in the past they were more fluid or even metaphorical.

    If you were talking about something else you’ll have to make it clearer. Anyway, food for thought :)
  • How do we perceive time?
    That’s a psychological matter that can be applied to language and general cultural traditions.
  • How do we perceive time?
    Time is how we perceive entropy.
  • What is your understanding of 'reality'?
    @Jack Cummins Message me about your general thoughts/approach on this subject. I think it might be worth have a direct discussion on this (as in just between the two of us).
  • The Role of Narration
    Very Jungian.

    I would say it is difficult to listen to ourselves. The biases are often consciously held to based on ‘instances’ rather than a more ‘combined’ use of experiences and knowledge.

    My own goto attitude is to lean hard into inner-liberalism whilst exerting outward conservatism. This way my inner chaos of myriad opinions and stances is always there to say ‘but ...’ without wholeheartedly adhering to a singular outward projection.

    Admittedly, I have been lucky enough to experience a 3-4 way internal discussion with myself (as separate ‘parts’ of my whole). It also helps if you’re inclined to be very open and somewhat dangerously curious.

    I’m pretty sure the core of this discussion could lead fo some interesting thoughts on Derrida and language.
  • What is your understanding of 'reality'?
    @Jack Cummins Event though it isn’t regarded as ‘Phenomenology’ I have been finding great value in reading Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    The landscape shifts from country to country.

    Whatever it is - the prejudice - if it results in the abuse of others it is abhorrent. I don’t put ‘racism’ on a pedestal of evil above other ‘items’ of prejudice. Others here seem to do so ... I understand why they do though. That’s fine.

    It makes sense to find ‘items’ of prejudice that have nothing to do with an individuals ‘choice’ more horrible than say, your choice in clothing. A poor example as people don’t often kill someone for their fashion choices!

    It is also a VERY confusing matter because the term ‘race’ carries lots of misconceptions and in the current environment is an admixture of tradition and culture clashing - as the actual scientific term is of little to no consequence when it comes to outward appearance and how people group themselves as to ‘belonging’ to this or that ‘race’.

    The most fiery aspect of all is it is, and has been, a primary issue of the most powerful nation on Earth for considerable time. This forces others to get involved even when they are so far removed from the epicentre of hatred the US is caught up in.

    Anyway ... The responses have been a little more measured and calmer that usual so I’ll step away now I think whilst the going is good. The discussion will surface again in some form or another and I was just trying to point out something that I find to be one issue overlooked, not to ‘look away’ just step back and reevaluate what people are saying and how it is being mis/construed.
  • What is your understanding of 'reality'?
    One term ... ‘Phenomenology’. That’s the best and most succinct thing I can offer at the moment.

    If you know this in it’s original philosophical form that is enough to get the gist across. It is more of a question than any pretence to ‘answer’ anything.
  • Emotional Intelligence
    A simple wiki search would’ve highlighted the criticisms:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
  • Emotional Intelligence
    It’s an advertisement.

    You can look into studies if you wish to. Basically there are a few empirical measurements of human traits. There are the Big Five and the g-factor.

    These can are known through a set of standard tests that have been given to many people over many decades from many walks of life. They are not completely accurate though.

    There are other ‘ideas’ thrown around by other psychologists too such as ‘Grit’ ... generally these really boil down to a combination or one or more of the Big Five and sometimes combined with ‘g’.

    My point being, what I mentioned above are the most non-reducible items of psychological research. Maybe some ‘emotional’ attribute exists too that is more distinct from these ... I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence for it though - I’ve looked a little and here and there. Some things look interesting, but most often it is someone trying to make a name for themselves and/or getting tunnel vision.

    With what I was outlining before we’d expect people with good communication skills and experience to have a good degree of Openness and to be Agreeable probably. To use this efficiently I’d factor in the g-factor (as it is the best indicator of health and general longterm ‘success’ - as in good job and promotions.

    To be clear, when I say ‘best indicator’ it is not a particularly good indicator alone. Once other things are factored in it can help get a better idea of someone, but individuals are pretty much individuals. We can discern a fair amount about groups of humans, but individual humans are a completely different and much more complex system to predict.

    I don’t believe buddhists or stoics are somehow in a better position than psychologists to dismiss or back such an idea because I think they’re more concerned with ‘how to live life’ than empirical scientific research.
  • Emotional Intelligence
    Given that the concept of ‘emotional intelligence’ isn’t very widely accepted means any measurement of it is on pretty sketchy footing.

    Intelligence (the g factor) does help discern an individuals economic standing, but it is one factor of many. There is no hard evidence - to my knowledge - that has a hard connection to ‘emotional intelligence’ because, as I said, the term isn’t even very widely accepted by researchers. There are ‘hints’ that something is there, but it could just be what I said (g factor + experience).
  • Emotional Intelligence
    Yet, there are undoubtedly other indicators for discerning emotional intelligence, such as being in poverty or such.Shawn

    Evidence?
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    I agree with this standard definition. To repeat what added in the closed thread ... my point was that the ‘item’ of discrimination by which someone feels ‘superior’ or deems a group of others as ‘inferior’ is prejudice - be this based on ‘items’ including class, nationality, perceived ethnicity, actual ethnicity, sex, political inclination and intelligence.

    In differing circumstances some items come more to the fore than others. I wouldn’t place ‘racism’ on some pedestal of evil over any of the others. Often enough you’d be hard pressed to find instances of any of these ‘items’ alone anyway.

    It would be nonsensical if someone was to suggest that one could be ‘prejudice’ of a certain ‘race’ of people and not be ‘racist’. That is something like the kind of hoodwinking that people either try to get away with of simply don’t put enough thought into because it doesn’t suit their current worldview and moral convictions.

    Probably the most erroneous of all this is how people are so easily dragged into one of these ‘items’ by mistakenly holding to, or against, another. We’re imperfect beings stuck with an imperfect language trying desperately to hope that we can, one day, maybe move away from being so imperfect.

    Beneath the semantics lies the heart. Mere ‘semantics’ can cause wars and genocides.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    If you don’t like it leave. I would suggest just listening/reading and holding your tongue/fingers.

    There are people here who can discuss topics without haranguing others. It’s a pretty sure bet that anything involving too much political weight will eventually result in a quagmire ... one-to-one, face-to-face discussion are better for that as people tend to be more reasonable and it is easier to cut through misunderstandings more quickly and efficiently.

    You probably know this though. Doesn’t hurt to hear it though ;)

    Anyway, I’m done here I think.

    Bye bye :)
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    haha!

    Of course. But I ask again, what is ‘racial prejudice’ then? If we can have ‘religious/class/racial prejudice’ is not racism a form of prejudice?

    If I was to say I ‘dislike x people’ based on ethnicity/skin-tone is that not a ‘racist’ comment? Or are you suggesting it is merely ‘prejudice’.

    I can certainly understand that the term ‘prejudice’ can be used to lessen the impact of ‘racism’ as it doesn’t necessarily carry such a heavy weight - being a term that doesn’t always mean ‘dislike’ and can mean, by definition, a ‘wishing to cause harm’.

    The terminology can be perceived as being meant to ‘lessen’ the horror of racism and/or to ‘increase’ the scope of ‘racism’ beyond reasonable bounds (with or without intent). I’m quite sensitive to the various interpretations, but the ACTUAL definitions and meanings shouldn’t always be so easily overlooked especially on a philosophy forum.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    To be fair ‘racism’ has a very specific history in human conflict and the event of scientific understanding (which both worsened the problem and lessen it to some degree).

    It is also a very big political issue in the US for quite blatantly obvious reasons. Not to say that it isn’t such a big deal in other parts of the world only that the US currently has the centre stage in global media.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    So you wish to ridicule rather than educate? I actual have dictionary that has multiple definitions for the term ‘prejudice’ ... please educate me and tell me what ‘racial prejudice’ is because it seems different to ‘racism’ bu what you’re saying.

    I’m genuinely interested.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    That is the ‘standard’ definition of racism. My point was people have murderous intent towards all manner of people’s for all manner of reasons (including class, national identity, religion and political leanings).

    A strong prejudice will result in one wanting to inflict harmon said group.
  • Racism or Prejudice? Is there a real difference?
    I’m not sure how you square ‘racism’ with ‘violent assault’ and ‘prejudice’ with ‘dislike’. If that’s your interpretation I can only suggest you consider your definitions may not fit in with everyone else’s.

    All I can ask you to consider is this question. What is ‘Racial Prejudice’?

    I’ll say no more because I don’t think the response will be without ire and emotion.
  • The new Racism.
    No.

    Racism is holding the belief that you’re morally or mentally superior based on ethnicity (often attributed - falsely - to physical appearances esp. skin-tone and bone structure).
  • Emotional Intelligence
    To ignore ‘definitions’ and answer your OP as directly as possible (no point quibbling over a gist question I guess) ...

    When it comes to ‘emotional maturity’ a lot of this is likely due to life experience. A lot is to do with how ‘maturity’ tends to lend itself toward the ability to plan long-term rather than being limited to short-term goals. Both combined, measured and understood would be wisdom.

    Im todays world there is undoubtedly a large shift towards the ‘immediate’ because technologies have made our lives dramatically easier in many regards and therefore it seems reasonable to me to attribute a certain lack of ‘long-term planning’ to exhibit itself in apparent ‘immaturity’.

    I don’t see the ‘emotional’ side having much more to do with this other than all humans generally being able to better deal with difference circumstances through lived experience. Stuck in a short-term planning loop would necessarily cut of access to certain life experiences. If you don’t plan anything long-term then you don’t have experience of this (obviously). It is seemingly less necessary to plan long-term.

    For small things ... simple communication is now so SIMPLE across the globe. Whereas a few generations ago one didn’t carry a phone around in your pocket or have the ability to look up anything you wished online ... no, you’d have to visit the library and select a number of books you wished to read and ONLy take so many out for a set period of time. Now you don’t even ‘have to’ read ... just listen to podcast and/or watch a youtube video whenever and where ever you like.

    People don’t really need to plan anymore, they just do. This may explain a shift in what you’re referring to when you suggest people are ‘less emotionally mature’.
  • Scottish independence
    Pride comes before the fall